Confidence is high as Diamonds head into a tough bank holiday weekend

Andy Peaks believes AFC Rushden & Diamonds are heading into a tough-looking bank holiday weekend with a bit of a spring in their step.

The Diamonds boss was far from impressed as his team were beaten 2-0 by Banbury United in their opening game of the Pitching In Southern League Premier Central campaign.

But he got the response he was looking for last weekend as Joel Gyasi’s stoppage-time goal secured an excellent 2-1 victory over highly-fancied Coalville Town at Hayden Road.

It was the perfect pick-me-up and sets Diamonds up for the busy bank holiday, which sees them travel to Bromsgrove Sporting for their first away game of the season tomorrow (Saturday) before Peterborough Sports come to Hayden Road on Monday afternoon.

After suffering somewhat surprising 4-0 and 3-0 defeats to Leiston and Alvechurch in their first two games, Bromsgrove picked up their first win of the season last weekend with a 1-0 success at Needham Market.

Sports, meanwhile, have made an ominously good start with a 100 per cent record so far. The Peterborough side are fancied by many to be genuine title contenders this season and head into the bank holiday weekend on the back of convincing wins over Rushall Olympic, Barwell and Biggleswade Town where they were 3-0 victors last Saturday.

But Peaks believes his team should be heartened by that superb success last weekend and is also hopeful that the win will have restored a bit of belief in the club’s supporters.

“I think last weekend’s result will give us so much confidence,” the Diamonds boss said.

“It will give us some belief and hopefully it has given the supporters some belief as well and I hope they can see what a good group of young players we have.

“It’s a tough weekend. Would you have picked those two fixtures back-to-back over the bank holiday? Probably not because they are two of the best teams in our league.

“But we have got to play everyone home and away over the course of the season and we will certainly be ready for the weekend.

“It’s going to test the squad to its limit, hopefully we will have a couple more available after a few missed last Saturday.

“But the squad will always be competitive and hopefully those three points we got last weekend will give us that bit of buoyancy.

“We will be working hard all week in training to make sure we are ready for what will be a really difficult couple of games.”